Brazilian visit at TCM

A large delegation from Brazil and the UK visited TCM, the European CO2 Technology Center at Mongstad, last Monday.

- It's very exciting for us to come to Mongstad. We are very surprised by the amount of investment and effort your are putting into this initiative. CCS is relevant for climate change mitigation and it's important to invest in CCS technology, says Beatriz Nassur Espinosa from the Brazilian oil company Petrobras.

She visited TCM together with a delegation of Brazilian government officials, the oil industry, a coal organization and from CCS organizations. The delegation was headed by minister counsellor Inge Nordang from the Norwegian embassy in Brasilia.

Construction activities at the new Technology Centre for CO2 capture at Mongstad (TCM) are proceeding according to plan, and is now 30 percent completed. About 200 workers are involved with construction on site, in addition to about 500 engineers and technical specialists working from various locations for the various suppliers.

In fall the amount of construction workers will increase significantly, when the installation of the prefabricated steel structures will start.

So far one of the absorber towers has been constructed. The construction will be 50 metres tall, including the chimney on the top. Even taller, however, will the absorber tower on Aker Clean Carbon's capture facility become. A whopping 62 metres straight up. Pouring will start after Easter.

The 5000-metre administration complex that will completed in fall will house several operations rooms to run the test facilities, as well as a workshop, laboratory, warehouse, etc.

TCM will test two different technologies, from Aker Clean Carbon and Alstom, respectively, for capture of CO2 from two flue gas sources with different CO2 content. The objective of the testing is in part to qualify the technologies for large-scale cleaning of exhaust gas, while simultaneously developing cost-effective technology solutions.

The technology centre at Mongstad is the largest planned pilot project of its kind, with an annual capacity for handling up to 100,000 tonnes of CO2. The centre is scheduled to start operation in late 2011/early 2012.

TCM DA has its own management, which is responsible for operations and the testing programmes.

TCM is owned by potential end users of the CO2 capture technology. The goal is to bring in additional owners, and the South African energy company Sasol has signed a letter of intent concerning participation.

Statoil is the project manager and operator of the development phase. The construction work started in the summer of 2009, and the plan is to carry out the initial tests in late 2011/early 2012.

TCM has two exhaust gas sources: gas turbine exhaust from the new thermal power plant at Mongstad and exhaust from the refinery's cracker. The exhaust gas is relevant for a number of industrial processes, including gas and coal power plants.TCM will include two CO2 capture technologies – one amine process and one chilled ammonia process.

The absorber towers will be used to test amine-based and chilled ammonia-based capture technologies. For CO2 capture after combustion, amines or chilled ammonia are used to absorb CO2. When the flue gas passes through the towers, most of the CO2 will bond with the amine or the chilled ammonia.